IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11956.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nutrition Labels and Obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Jayachandran N. Variyam
  • John Cawley

Abstract

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) imposed significant changes in the information about calories and nutrients that manufacturers of packaged foods must provide to consumers. This paper tests whether the release of this information impacted body weight and obesity among American adults. We estimate the effect of the new label using a difference-in-differences method. We compare the change before and after the implementation of NLEA in body weight among those who use labels when food shopping to that among those who do not use labels. In National Health Interview Survey data we find, among non-Hispanic white women, that the implementation of the new labels was associated with a decrease in body weight and the probability of obesity. Using NLEA regulatory impact analysis benchmarks, we estimate that the total monetary benefit of this decrease in body weight was $63 to $166 billion over a 20-year period, far in excess of the costs of the NLEA.

Suggested Citation

  • Jayachandran N. Variyam & John Cawley, 2006. "Nutrition Labels and Obesity," NBER Working Papers 11956, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11956
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11956.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Teisl, Mario F. & Levy, Alan S., 1997. "Does Nutrition Labeling Lead To Healthier Eating?," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 28(3), pages 1-10, October.
    2. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Welfare Reform and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    3. Kim, Sung-Yong & Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr. & Capps, Oral, Jr., 2000. "The Effect Of Food Label Use On Nutrient Intakes: An Endogenous Switching Regression Analysis," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-17, July.
    4. John Cawley, 2004. "The Impact of Obesity on Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    5. Finkelstein, Amy, 2002. "The effect of tax subsidies to employer-provided supplementary health insurance: evidence from Canada," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 305-339, June.
    6. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Welfare Reform and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chang, Hung-Hao & Nayga Jr., Rodolfo M., 2011. "Mother's nutritional label use and children's body weight," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 171-178, April.
    2. Mandal, Bidisha, 2008. "Food Labels and Weight Loss: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6200, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Narain, Kimberly & Bitler, Marianne & Ponce, Ninez & Kominski, Gerald & Ettner, Susan, 2017. "The impact of welfare reform on the health insurance coverage, utilization and health of low education single mothers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 28-35.
    4. Charles, Kerwin Kofi & DeCicca, Philip, 2008. "Local labor market fluctuations and health: Is there a connection and for whom?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1532-1550, December.
    5. Dan Axelsen & Dan Friesner & Robert Rosenman & Hal Snarr, 2007. "Welfare recipient work choice and in-kind benefits in Washington state," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(8), pages 1021-1036.
    6. Simpson, Julija & Albani, Viviana & Bell, Zoe & Bambra, Clare & Brown, Heather, 2021. "Effects of social security policy reforms on mental health and inequalities: A systematic review of observational studies in high-income countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    7. Cho, Sungju & Lee, Sanghyeon, 2016. "Multilevel Analysis On Mother’S Nutrition Label Use And Children’S Propensity For Being Overweight," Journal of Rural Development/Nongchon-Gyeongje, Korea Rural Economic Institute, vol. 39(Special, ), pages 1-24, December.
    8. Goulão, Catarina & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2023. "Weight, Attractiveness, and Gender When Hiring: A Field Experiment in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 16119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Charles Courtemanche & James Marton & Benjamin Ukert & Aaron Yelowitz & Daniela Zapata, 2018. "Early Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Care Access, Risky Health Behaviors, and Self‐Assessed Health," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(3), pages 660-691, January.
    10. Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2012. "A Matter of Weight? The Role of Spouses. Physical Attractiveness on Hours of Work," CHILD Working Papers Series 7, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    11. Md. Alauddin Majumder, 2013. "Does Obesity Matter for Wages? Evidence from the United States," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 200-217, June.
    12. Courtemanche, Charles & Tchernis, Rusty & Zhou, Xilin, 2017. "Parental Work Hours and Childhood Obesity: Evidence Using Instrumental Variables Related to Sibling School Eligibility," IZA Discussion Papers 10739, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Jonathan Gruber, 2008. "Covering the Uninsured in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 13758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    15. Parks, Joanna, 2013. "The Effects of Food Labeling and Dietary Guidance on Nutrition in the United States," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150583, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. von Hinke Kessler Scholder S, 2009. "Genetic Markers as Instrumental Variables: An Application to Child Fat Mass and Academic Achievement," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/25, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    18. Donal O'Neill & Olive Sweetman, 2013. "Estimating Obesity Rates in Europe in the Presence of Self-Reporting Errors," Economics Department Working Paper Series n236-13.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    19. Martin, Molly A. & Lippert, Adam M., 2012. "Feeding her children, but risking her health: The intersection of gender, household food insecurity and obesity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(11), pages 1754-1764.
    20. Sonja Settele & Reyn van Ewijk, 2017. "The effect of cigarette taxes during pregnancy on educational outcomes of the next generation," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201703, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11956. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.